“Just Get Help”, and Other Ineffective Things We Say to Make Ourselves Feel Better
“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.“ — Jack London
There’s so much that’s already been said about depression. How one can overcome it is still beyond us as human beings. For all of the expensive stays at Betty Ford, to all of the tired and weary family members and friends that we lean on, we like to think that we can just ‘get help.’ But, what does ‘get help’ really mean? Your first thought might be to say, that it depends. And of course, that would be accurate. But only accurate in the way that someone who might explain the ability to fly an airplane might explain it to a layperson, that is, more often than not, a surface-level understanding that rarely if ever, provides any valuable insight and certainly no actionable intelligence. Because, until you understand what living with depression is really like, it might be tempting to answer with such cursory advice: Just get help. Get back on your meds. Reach out to your friends and family. Seek professional help. How many times I personally have heard this advice is beyond my ability to estimate. Even from seemingly educated professionals themselves, they have little understanding of what really helps, but a rather advanced understanding of exactly how much the ambiguous treatment for said depression will cost. Indeed, I don’t think anyone understands that hasn’t been there, and even those that have been there, are left with a series of more and more hopeless treatments designed less to solve the problems of depression, and more to solve the financial insolvency that these “professionals” would otherwise face.
Many will criticize me for my views in this article. They will cite cases where some people were supposedly helped by the extraordinarily expensive treatment provided by expert psychologists or teams of medical professionals, who were lucky enough to have the resources to secure such places, the success of which is certainly dubious. Critics to this article will talk about how their friends and family were the deciding factors in their success and that others should seek out the same in their life, when they feel hopeless. I suppose that there is some faction of the population that can be helped with the previously mentioned means. I suppose also that there is a percentage of depressed people who can be helped with some marginal amount of treatment, psychotherapy, drugs, etc., but I would posit that if those treatments helped them, that it is unlikely they had major depression, but instead some treatable mental challenges that were transitory in nature, not unrelenting hopelessness like so many with major depression suffer with.
A couple of months ago, Adam Rich died at the age of 54. You might not know the name, but anyone over 45-ish will certainly remember him from his role as Nicholas on the television show, Eight is Enough. Adam, along with so many of his peers of childhood stardom represents and magnifies the issue for many of us, because we know all-to-well how many times we’ve tried something to solve our pain, to try and simply feel like life is worth living. But for many of us, Adam included, that peace has never been easy to find. In his case, that point is moot now, just as it will be for many of us who seek to simply end the seemingly never-ending hopelessness.
You likely have also never heard of Michael Wolf Snyder, a 35-year-old sound mixer working on the movie, Nomadland, who took his own life after years of suffering. His father a psychiatrist himself, had tried to get him help many times over the years. I would ask that if a professionally trained mental health professional could not do anything to save his son from such a fate, then what chance do the rest of us have? I would submit that a written answer to that question would probably make us very sad indeed.
There’s also the more well-known suicides including Chris Cornell, Robin Williams, Hunter Thompson, Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Ernest Hemingway, Vincent Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Anthony Bourdain, Abbie Hoffman, Michael Hutchence, Naomi Judd, and Margot Kidder. Should you ever find yourself giving someone with depression that old familiar advice to simply remember all that they have to live for, remember this list of people. Should you find yourself giving the advice to reach out to family and friends, remember this list. Without exception, this list includes some of the best and perhaps brightest, but certainly the most talented among us. As such, they all had a support system, money, and all the things that we think should make our lives valuable. Yet, it didn’t stop Chris Cornell from finishing a concert for thousands of adoring fans, and then promptly proceeding to hang himself. It didn’t stop Robin Williams from the same fate; nor Michael Hutchence. There is unfortunately no easy answer and to simplify things by saying that we just need to “get help” is just adding to the weight that those of us with major depression must bear.
On a typical day, I wake up and go to the gym, eat lunch, do some work and seek answers to the unanswerable. Sometimes writing about these issues helps me to make sense of some of it. Sometimes, I stop in midsentence and hold down the delete key because the words just won’t come. Sometimes the words come, but they don’t make me feel any better. Sometimes, they provide a temporary relief that lasts an hour. More often than not, they simply provide an outlet that seems to be the only thing I can do to feel the the most modest of reprieves. Reaching out to friends and family to try and explain the same feelings of hopelessness is…hopeless. Experimenting with the tens of dozens of drugs available for a small fortune, feels most akin to throwing a dart at a board that’s moving while the light goes on and off. The side effects alone from the ten drugs I’ve tried were often worse than the depression itself, and I’ve never found one that resolved the issue. Sometimes the depression will go away for a long time on its own, the longest period being more than three years but inevitably, it returns like a bad houseguest that you just can’t figure out how to evict. It’s relentless when it’s bad, and much like a dull ache even when it’s not. It might not kill you right now, but the reminder is never far away.
I’ll be 51 this year. This is the age that most men decide to pull the trigger, so-to-speak. I have no relationships to speak of. I moved across the country two years ago and haven’t spoken to any family members since then. But even before that we never had what you would call a ‘great relationship.’ My own mother suffers with depression and likely bi-polar disorder for which she has never received any effective treatment. She’s tried alcohol, drugs, marriage, having children, and every other thing that we try as humans to resolve our pain, but to no avail. We are quite a bit alike, which likely helps to explain the seemingly permanent sense of inconsolability for either of us. I’ve resigned myself that we likely will never reconcile, that we may never speak again, and that this situation is actually not that uncommon.
I don’t have any words of wisdom for those suffering. If I did, I would have followed my own advice long ago. I have very little to say that could make you feel better. The idea that we should all live as long as possible is not only offensive to me, but challenges the very nature of life. Legal or not, I will end this life if I choose and no ‘authority’ can stop me. Perhaps we should allow those in pain to make decisions for themselves in much the same way, because the pain it causes you to allow such things, is beyond our control and ultimately, just as you can’t resolve my pain, I cannot prevent yours.
